


Roots

by skylandmountain



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-04 12:23:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13364646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skylandmountain/pseuds/skylandmountain
Summary: Set after Season 11 Episode 2After a tough few days Scully gets sick.





	Roots

**Author's Note:**

> I had an anon ask for a cute fluffy sickfic.  
> I tried to take it there but it ended up somewhere else. It is a sickfic but it’s tied up in memories of their past, hope for the future, how they interact and the tenderness Mulder shows towards Scully rather than out right fluff.  
> It feels sort of right to say they’re still tentative in their reconciliation but Scully being sick bonds them, they fall easily into comfortable familiarity.  
> For the sake of this fic they are married.
> 
> In short I’m really not sure what it is but i loved writing it.

Scully puts the ache in her neck and shoulders down to the events of the last few days. She’d kicked the ass of the Russians with total sass but she is covered in bruises and exhausted.

She hadn’t felt like going in when the hospital called her to cover an urgent autopsy,   
but here she is bending over a mottled dead body regretting her willingness to say yes. 

It had started with an aching in her neck, shoulders and hip from hitting the floor so hard but the aching was creeping slowly through her body and into her bones.   
Her throat feels like she’s swallowed a pack of razor blades and her head pounds with every movement.  
She knows she’s got a fever, her eyes burn and her limbs feel like lead.  
There’s no mistaking the fact she’s sick, her medical brain can see the virus spores exploding inside her.  
Before she leaves she visits a colleague who diagnoses strep throat, gives her antibiotics and strict orders to rest which she has no intention of doing. 

Scully pushes open the front door.

Immediately she sees he’s tidied up, they were going to tackle it together today until work got in the way. Her files are back in her cabinet, photos and ornaments back on shelves. Some things are gone, too broken to fix. 

Her little plants that she’d cultivated the first year they were here were trampled, their petals crushed and stems split. She’d cried when she'd seen their delicate flowers torn and pushed down by heavy boots into the mud. The decimation of her flowers hurt more than any bruises. She used to come to the house when it was no longer her home, she'd check Mulder was out and she would stand a stare at her plants, they told her story, reminded her she'd been here.   
Mulder had comforted her as they stood on the porch, pulled her towards him, the familiarity of his hand on the back of her hair.   
He knew what those plants meant to her and all the time she wasn't here he tended them. She didn't know but he'd watched her every time she went out pulling off leaves, trimming down stems, he knew what to do. He did nothing else after she left but he'd tended her plants. 

Kicking off her shoes she collapses onto the couch with a groan.

Mulder is looking flustered in the kitchen, he always looks a little crazy when he’s trying to cook. He insists on wearing Scully’s baking apron and uses every pan he can find. 

“Hey Scully you ok?” he says, suddenly aware she’s not made it further than the couch. She always comes into the kitchen, slips her arms around his waist and cuddles into his back before taking the wooden spoon and tasting something from every pan.

“No, I got sick, I bet it was one of those damn Russians” she moans her hand over her eyes.

Mulder sets down the oven gloves and perches on the side of the couch next to her.  
He places his palm on her forehead.  
" Scully you’re burning up, you’ve got a fever”

“I know Mulder i’m a medical doctor, it’s just strep I’ll be fine after a good nights sleep. We need to catch up with work and take a trip to Ikea tomorrow”

Mulder furrows his brow Scully is always a pain in the ass when she’s sick. She somehow thinks being a doctor makes her less sick than anyone else. 

“Scully you’re going nowhere this weekend” Mulder says gently running his thumb across her cheek. “You need to rest”

Scully rolls her eyes then wishes she hadn’t as the pain in her head stabs behind her eyeballs. 

“Do you feel like eating?” Mulder asks throwing a slightly crestfallen glance towards the kitchen where his best lasagne yet is bubbling contentedly in the oven. 

She wants to say yes but she’s not hungry, if anything the smell of their tea which is usually her favourite is making her want to throw up. 

“I’m sorry Mulder I don’t think I can” her voice is slightly raspy and she feels so tired it’s an effort to talk. 

“S’ok it will keep, i’ll freeze it for when you’re feeling better.”

Scully shivers and yawns “ow” she says feeling under her chin and along her jawline. 

"lymph nodes?" Mulder asks, pleased with his medical reference. 

"Yeah and they hurt" 

“Come on I’ll draw you a bath and then you need to sleep” Mulder holds out his hand and helps her up from the couch. 

Mulder watches her as she snuggles into their bed, he thinks about the times when she might have been sick and alone. She wouldn’t have called him but he would have wanted her to, it would have broken his endless days and nights of wondering if she would ever lie next to him again. 

Scully swallows her antibiotics and tylenol, her throat feels like sandpaper and the pills make her gag as they go down. 

Mulder sits on the bed “will one of my special honey and cinnamon spice teas help?"  
Scully nods unable to summon the required energy to respond with words.  
Mulder grazes the back of her hand with his thumb “ won’t be long” he says getting up and turning the lamp down low. 

Mulder turns off the oven and brews Scully’s tea. 

She’s already asleep when he takes it upstairs she was probably asleep before he’d made it to the bottom stair but he leaves it on her nightstand incase she wakes. 

Mulder returns to the kitchen, dishes up his own plate of lasagne and portions up the rest into the tupperware pots Scully had insisted they needed on their last trip to Ikea.  
She’d been right, he needed those pots tonight. 

He ate his food, checked on a still sleeping Scully, then flicked Plan 9 from outer space on.   
He woke as the credits rolled. Damn he must be tired he loves that film and it’s only 9.30  
Turning out the lights downstairs he heads for the shower and then very quietly and with such stealth slips into bed beside Scully without so much as a flicker of her eyelids. 

The vomiting started at precisely 11.24pm  
He woke as she got out of bed.  
“you ok Scully?” he says into the darkness.  
The sound of her retching told him told him everything he needed to know.  
Scooting out of bed he is by her side in seconds.  
“I’m ok Mulder go back to bed it’s just the fever making me throw up I’ll be fine when it breaks” her voice is hoarse and her body is wracked with shivers.  
He doesn’t go back to bed, instead he holds her hair back, rubs her back and hands her a glass of water.   
She didn’t really want him to go, he’s seen her at her very worst, he’s seen her vomit because she was dying and she didn’t want him to go then either, not really. 

“Scully please stop saying it’s nothing. To me it’s something, it doesn’t matter to me you being a doctor, you’re my wife and you’re sick, to me that is something”

Scully forgets her practicalities don’t suit everyone she knows what’s going on, at this moment her body is a walking textbook case of strep but to Mulder he just sees her and he wants to help, to feel useful. 

“Sorry” she whispers as he places a cool flannel on her forehead. 

“S’ok” his voice gravels across his vocal chords as he brushes damp strands of hair from her face. 

Mulder gets up with her every hour until after 3am when she finally stops throwing up. He’d lain awake watching her alternate between pale with extra sweaty chucked in to flushed red when her fever reached it’s peak again.  
Finally she falls asleep on his chest and stays there until the early morning light flickers through the blinds.   
“Hey” Mulder gently runs his fingers through her hair as she rubs her eyes and tries to bring herself out of sleep into the present. She slowly sits up, she feels out of it, detached like she’s been somewhere else for the night. 

“How you feeling medical doctor?” 

“I’ve been better, I think Ikea is off for today.   
But at this stage of a streptococcus infection I’m pretty much on track” she says with a half smile. 

“Well that’s great news Dr Scully, may I suggest getting as much rest as possible on that particular track” Mulder says smiling and straightening the comforter around her.

“it’s a very good suggestion” she murmurs tucking her legs up to her chest and pulling the covers tightly around her.  
She sleeps all day it's too exhausting to be awake even her hair feels tired, but it's a restless sleep broken by odd spikes of shivers and fever.

Mulder brings her a hot water bottle to warm her freezing toes and a cold flannel to cool her forehead.  
He makes sure she drinks, he brings her iced water and tea.

Each time he goes up she's in a different position, he sees her curled up in a ball and splayed out like a starfish but it's at the end of the day when he finally sees her sleeping peacefully on his side of the bed, her red hair tumbling over his pillow that makes him stop and stare. 

She must have sensed him standing there, she stirs and opens her eyes. It takes her a few seconds to realise where she is. 

"Sorry, i was hot your side was so cool and inviting" 

Mulder sits on the bed "how you feeling Scully?"his palm is gentle on her forehead.  
She's warm but the heat is less. 

"I'm ok. A little better i think" she says sitting up and testing out her theory. 

" Can i make you something to eat?" 

She rubs her palm across her stomach and shakes her head " i don't think I can not yet but one of your teas would be good"

She wants to take a bath so he strips the bed, it makes people feel better to have fresh sheets when they're sick. That's what she'd told him once a long time ago before this, their home. She'd come to his apartment when he was recovering from the flu, she'd made him take a shower and she'd changed his bed. She was right it did make him feel better. She’d made him feel better, his Scully.

She smiles when she slips back into bed “feels nice”  
That’s good enough for him, he’d only ever wanted to make her smile he never intended to lead her into darkness and let it consume them. She hadn’t wanted to leave him there but he’d given her no choice. Now they were finding their way back towards a semi light. 

Tonight she sleeps unbroken, a tiny spoon tucked into him in all the right places. He wraps his arms around her, keeps her warm and safe. 

Another day starts with the rising sun, it’s pale winter warmth lending itself briefly to the sky.

Scully peels herself away from Mulders embrace and turns around to face him. She wraps one leg over his as they lie, heads on pillows looking into each others eyes.   
" you ok?" Mulder asks his voice is heavy with sleep.  
Scully nods and traces his lips with her finger " yeah i'm ok Mulder" she whispers huskily.  
Scully's stomach growls, she hasn't eaten for almost two days.  
"Hungry huh?" Mulder extracts his legs from Scully's. "I'll go make you some breakfast, what can you eat?" he asks pulling on his old knicks t shirt.   
"A little oatmeal maybe" she offers. She is hungry but she's still not sure she can eat yet. 

Mulder makes the oatmeal just as Scully does, he adds a teaspoon of honey and a handful of berries just as she does. He knows what she does he's sat across the table from her so many times and watched her drizzle honey across the stuff he calls cement. He's never understood what Scully eats, it always looks like it's had the fun taken out of it but she likes it. 

Mulder carries the bowl up to her and watches her spoon the oatmeal into her mouth. 

"It's good" she says suddenly self conscious, aware Mulder is watching her. 

"You want some more?" 

Scully shakes her head "no i'm done" she says resting back against the pillows. 

She closes her eyes, she feels so much better today but her energy isn't there, her limbs don't want to work and her head still throbs with movement but she feels like she should get up, she should try to do a little work.

"I'll take a shower, come downstairs and maybe we can take a look at some paperwork" she says forcing her legs out of bed. 

Mulder nods, he isn't going to tell her not to. He learnt a long time ago Scully makes her own choices.

Scully sits on the bed, her hair wrapped in a towel. She doesn't want to go downstairs anymore, her body hurts and she's exhausted. She's fit but she's older, everything takes time to recover.   
A wave of vulnerability washes over her.

She picks up the photograph of her mom from her nightstand and hugs it to her chest. So much has changed, so much has been lost. 

"Scully?" Mulders voice is soft as he sits beside her. 

"I miss her Mulder, I miss my mom. I miss her holding me and the way she called my name" 

Mulder doesn't speak but he holds her, his arms wrapped tightly around her as she leans on his shoulder.

They both know the pain of loss, it's woven into their souls.

Mulder reaches out and takes the towel from Scully's wet hair, crosses the room picks up her hairdryer and without a word gently dries her hair.   
It's an act of tender intimacy that makes her cry. 

They lie together, she sleeps he doesn't but he feels a sense of calm. He has purpose, he has Scully.

She wakes content, safe in Mulders arms. 

He brings tea on a tray alongside the Ikea catalogue and they laugh and argue over coffee tables and bookshelves.

Later as the day is ending she comes downstairs, he's made her soup. It's chicken soup out of a can but she doesn't care because she'd once told him her mom made her chicken soup when she was sick.   
This chicken soup in a can is their lives navigated together, he understands her. 

"Scully, come here, i want to show you something" Mulder leads her out to the porch wrapping his big old trench coat around her, it has room for four Scully's but he wants her to be warm. 

Yesterday while she was sleeping he'd gone outside, brushed the mud from her crumpled flowers, picked up the crushed stems and found a single plant still standing. He'd tended the soil around it and fed it the special plant supplement Scully swears by and today he is sure it appears stronger.

" Look" he says leading her outside "it's roots might be tangled but they're strong Scully" 

Scully crouches down and feels the delicate blue petals beneath her fingertips. Their velvet softness feels like home. 

She laces her fingers with Mulders and pulls him gently towards the porch. "Sit with me Mulder"

As they sit the sky darkens, the stars brighten and there's silence save for the swish of their feet across the wooden boards as they rock back and forth on the swing at the unremarkable house.


End file.
